Kim's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:20:43 -0700 60 Kim's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1)]]> 41945163
Planning her best friend's wedding is bittersweet for Kristen—especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He's funny, sexy, never offended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Stuntman Mike, adores him. The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he'd be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it's harder and harder to keep him at arm's length.

The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass.]]>
372 Abby Jimenez Kim 0 to-read 3.85 2019 The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kim
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone, #2)]]> 50208350 The Friend Zone.

Two years after losing her fiancé, Sloan Monroe still can't seem to get her life back on track. But one trouble-making pup with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With her new pet by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's owner reaches out. He's a musician on tour in Australia. And bottom line: He wants Tucker back.

Well, Sloan's not about to give up her dog without a fight. As their flirty texts turn into long calls, Sloan can't deny a connection. There's no telling what could happen when they meet in person. The question is: With his music career on the rise, how long will Jason really stick around? And is it possible for Sloan to survive another heartbreak?]]>
401 Abby Jimenez Kim 0 to-read 4.14 2020 The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone, #2)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kim
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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All the Broken Places 61111301
Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry's beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence.

All The Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel's girlhood in Germany to present-day London as a woman whose life has been haunted by the past. Now, Gretel faces a similar crossroads to one she encountered long ago. Back then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before -- whatever the cost to herself....

From the New York Times bestselling author John Boyne, a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her own terrible past, and a present in which it is never too late for bravery. ]]>
400 John Boyne 0593653068 Kim 0 currently-reading 4.43 2022 All the Broken Places
author: John Boyne
name: Kim
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Things We Hide from the Light (Knockemout, #2)]]> 62022434
Too bad Lina’s got secrets of her own, and if Nash finds out the real reason she’s in town, he’ll never forgive her. Besides, she doesn’t do relationships. Ever. A hot, short-term fling with a local cop? Absolutely. Sign her up. A relationship with a man who expects her to plant roots? No freaking way. Once she gets what she’s after, she has no intention of sticking around. But Knockemout has a way of getting under people’s skin. And once Nash decides to make Lina his, he’s not about to be dissuaded…even if it means facing the danger that nearly killed him.]]>
594 Lucy Score Kim 0 currently-reading 4.04 2023 Things We Hide from the Light (Knockemout, #2)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1)]]> 55077538
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu uses the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.

Mulan meets The Song of Achilles; an accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China.]]>
414 Shelley Parker-Chan 1250621801 Kim 0 to-read 3.80 2021 She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1)
author: Shelley Parker-Chan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Crash 216223604 The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.

But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.
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384 Freida McFadden 1464232989 Kim 3 I kept reading because I needed to know how it ended. I found it sloppy. Written in a rush?
and couldn't connect deeply with the main characters.]]>
3.58 2025 The Crash
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kim
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves:
review:
I read this book in 24 hrs. Easy read. Just not her best work.
I kept reading because I needed to know how it ended. I found it sloppy. Written in a rush?
and couldn't connect deeply with the main characters.
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<![CDATA[Whiskey Chaser (Bootleg Springs, #1)]]> 217446262
Devlin is a man at rock bottom. Marriage, political career, five-year plan to Washington, D.C. All destroyed with one well-placed jab. The golden boy is now the black sheep relegated to Bootleg Springs, a tiny West Virginia town with two claims to fame: 1. Moonshine and 2. The cold case disappearance of a teen girl.

Devlin just wants to lick his wounds. But Scarlett has other ideas for his tongue� and the rest of him. She’s determined to bring him back to life, even if getting him back on his feet means never seeing him again. But when an old mystery becomes new news, she’ll need his help to survive the scandal.]]>
388 Lucy Score Kim 0 to-read 4.12 2018 Whiskey Chaser (Bootleg Springs, #1)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Finally Mine (Benevolence, #2)]]> 169946575 From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Things We Never Got Over

If he doesn't end up naked and spread eagle on my bed I. Will. Die. Gloria is due a happily ever after. She's lost ten years to a toxic, dangerous relationship. Now that she's finally free―and medicating with makeovers and margaritas in her mother's kitchen―she has a long road ahead of her remembering who she really is. She's scarred. But scarred doesn't mean broken. While Gloria's deciding to take the next decade off from men, along comes larger-than-life, hometown hero Aldo Moretta. He's saying all the right things and flirting in all the right ways. He's deploying for six months and wants a date…with Gloria…when he comes back. Swoon. Panic. One kiss, one dazzling, remember-for-a-lifetime kiss and he's gone. But life and happily ever afters don't always take the straight path. When Aldo's deployment is cut short by an injury, it's up to Gloria to be the hero for them both. Author's You will laugh, cry, and fall head over face for Gloria and Aldo. And the evil rescue kitten. Also the four-letter-word-loving, commando-going Mrs. Moretta who's just in it for the cookies.]]>
448 Lucy Score Kim 0 to-read 3.96 2018 Finally Mine (Benevolence, #2)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Protecting What's Mine (Benevolence, #3)]]> 219287636 If you ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stand the heat, don’t fall for a firefighterâ€�

Fire Chief Lincoln Reed is known for his heroics in the fire department and in the bedroom. Life is a never-ending good time. Until she lands in the middle of the accident scene he’s working…and then his backyard. Too bad she’s immune to flirty first responders.

Flight trauma surgeon Mackenzie O’Neil is on a crash course with burnout. She’s got a scar on her face and a shake in her hands. A temporary job as a small-town family physician is just the prescription. She’ll learn to meditate. Sleep more. Take up gardening.

She definitely won’t take her shirtless, firefighting neighbor’s hot body for a test drive.

But Linc and his tattoos are very persuasive. What’s a harmless little adrenaline-fueled fling between neighbors? It’s all naked fun and games until the shadows from Mack’s past find their way into her present. Can Linc be her hero when she needs him the most or will their scars ruin everything?

One thing is certain: Someone is going to get burned.

Author’s Warning: This small-town happily ever after is smokin� hot, sweetly hilarious, deliciously suspenseful, and a one-two punch to the feels. One-click for a disaster dog, precocious kids, a good ol� fistfight, nosy neighbors, high-adrenaline first responder heroics, firefighter bromance, and kitchen sexytimes. ]]>
476 Lucy Score 1945631554 Kim 0 to-read 4.27 2020 Protecting What's Mine (Benevolence, #3)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Things We Never Got Over (Knockemout, #1)]]> 60060431 Bearded, bad-boy barber Knox prefers to live his life the way he takes his coffee: Alone. Unless you count his basset hound, Waylon.
Knox doesn’t tolerate drama, even when it comes in the form of a stranded runaway bride.

Naomi wasn’t just running away from her wedding. She was riding to the rescue of her estranged twin to Knockemout, Virginia, a rough-around-the-edges town where disputes are settled the old-fashioned way…with fists and beer. Usually in that order.

Too bad for Naomi her evil twin hasn’t changed at all. After helping herself to Naomi’s car and cash, Tina leaves her with something unexpected. The niece Naomi didn’t know she had. Now she’s stuck in town with no car, no job, no plan, and no home with an 11-year-old going on thirty to take care of.

There’s a reason Knox doesn’t do complications or high-maintenance women, especially not the romantic ones. But since Naomi’s life imploded right in front of him, the least he can do is help her out of her jam. And just as soon as she stops getting into new trouble he can leave her alone and get back to his peaceful, solitary life.

At least, that’s the plan until the trouble turns to real danger.]]>
572 Lucy Score 1945631848 Kim 3 4.15 2022 Things We Never Got Over (Knockemout, #1)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves:
review:

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Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]>
432 Emily Henry Kim 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Kim
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
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Forever Never 57118988
Under Brick Callan’s mile-wide chest beats a loyal heart with a few cracks in it. He’s the steadfast, overprotective type. Especially when it comes to the one woman he can never have. It’s a long, complicated history punctuated by fights, friendship, family, and an attraction that strains his iron willpower.

When Remi Ford returns to Mackinac Island in the dead of winter with a secret, Brick makes it his mission to find out what put the shadows in those green eyes. Even if it means breaking down the walls he’s built between them. Even if it means falling for the one girl he’ll never get over.

The free-spirited artist just needs to lay low for a few weeks so she can figure a way out of this nightmare. She’s definitely not staying. Not when the man who broke her teenage heart into splinters keeps showing up at her parents� dinner table. Remi doesn’t need broody, bearded Brick riding to her rescue…again. Not when it will put them both in danger, costing them much more than their hearts.

Author’s Note: Frenemies-to-lovers. Opposites attract. Slow burn. Girl in danger. Glorious, glorious banter. Fighting as foreplay. Small-town shenanigans. Big, grumpy, pining, overprotective hero. Wild-child, trouble-finding heroine who keeps on pushing the hero’s buttons. Steam Level: Lava. Suspense: Nail-biting. Feels: Big time.]]>
588 Lucy Score Kim 4
Love the banter between Remi and Brick. The spicyness of the author's sex scenes and the storyline kept me reading at super speed... 100% recommend]]>
3.98 2021 Forever Never
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars

Love the banter between Remi and Brick. The spicyness of the author's sex scenes and the storyline kept me reading at super speed... 100% recommend
]]>
<![CDATA[Mr. Fixer Upper (Fixer: King Siblings #1)]]> 218681009
Mr. Sex in a Toolbelt has made it his mission in life to get a rise out of her, but Paige is a master at locking down her temper. They’re on the road together working long hours fixing houses and changing lives. When cracks in her legendary coolness start to show and sparks fly, Gannon is infatuated and the cameras are there to capture it.

But he’s fallen for pretty packages before and Paige won’t be taken seriously if she’s caught sleeping with the star of her show. She also ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t seem to resist those big, rough hands. Those smoldery hazel eyes. The dimples. The toolbelt. That fiercely protective vibe.

Too bad it’s all about to fall apart.
She never should have trusted him.
He never should have let her go.

Author’s Note: A protective grumpy hero, a not easily impressed heroine, the worst human being on TV ever, a grand gesture so big you’ll need a box of tissues, and THAT SHOWER SCENE.]]>
402 Lucy Score 1945631082 Kim 0 to-read 3.96 Mr. Fixer Upper (Fixer: King Siblings #1)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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Rock Bottom Girl 44178049 “You may be faking the relationship, but you’re not faking the orgasms.�

Downsized, broke, and dumped, 38-year-old Marley sneaks home to her childhood bedroom in the town she couldn’t wait to escape twenty years ago. Not much has changed in Culpepper. The cool kids are still cool. Now they just own car dealerships and live in McMansions next door. Oh, and the whole town is still talking about that Homecoming she ruined her senior year.

Desperate for a new start, Marley accepts a temporary teaching position. Can the girl banned from all future Culpepper High Homecomings keep the losing-est girls soccer team in school history from killing each other and prevent carpal tunnel in a bunch of phone-clutching gym class students?

Maybe with the help of Jake Weston, high school bad boy turned sexy good guy. When the school rumor mill sends Marley to the principal’s office to sign an ethics contract, the tattooed track coach, dog dad, and teacher of the year becomes her new fake boyfriend and alibi—for a price. The Deal: He’ll teach her how to coach if she teaches him how to be in a relationship.

Who knew a fake boyfriend could deliver such real orgasms? But it’s all temporary. The guy. The job. The team. There’s too much history. Rock bottom ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t turn into a foundation for happily ever after. Can it?

Warning: Story also includes a meet-puke, a bouffanted nemesis, a yard swan and donkey basketball, a teenage-orchestrated makeover, and a fake relationship that gets a little too real between the sheets.]]>
532 Lucy Score 1945631430 Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2019 Rock Bottom Girl
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Worst Best Man 209821813 "Newsflash. You don't buy me, a$#%^*e. You earn me."

The bride is a doll. The groom is the perfect gentleman. But the rest of the wedding party? They're the stuff of nightmares. Rich? Check. Vapid? Double Check. Entitled? Not enough checks in the world. And the Best Man? More like the Worst Man.

But Maid of Honor Franchesca takes her duties seriously. Kidnapped groom? She's got this. Rude attendees? You just watch her handle them. So a Best Man with a big attitude and an even bigger...checkbook? Yeah, there's no way she's going to let that pretentious, judgmental jackhole ruin her best friend's wedding. No matter how sexy he is. (Well, that's the plan anyway...)

Aiden Kilbourn doesn't do long-term relationships. He's busy ruling the business world, and has yet to find a woman he can tolerate for longer than a month, two at the outside, anyway. Conquering the unconquerable is basically his bread and butter. And he hasn't met a challenge that he can't win. But Franchesca Baranski? This smart-mouthed girl from Brooklyn may just be his downfall.]]>
448 Lucy Score 1945631163 Kim 0 to-read 4.07 2018 The Worst Best Man
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Christmas Fix (Fixer: King Siblings #2)]]> 218678292 She'll save Christmas just to spite him...

When a late season hurricane hits Merry, Connecticut, city manager and single dad Noah Yates has to inform the already devastated residents that there won't be a Christmas Festival this year. No festival means no tourism dollars. A disaster of epic proportions for his hometown.

But when home renovation expert slash smoking hot reality TV star Catalina King shows up with a camera crew and a budget big enough to put the town back together again, Noah balks. Hard. The last time Cat was in town she stirred up trouble everywhere she went. (Residents are still talking about the town's first and only bar fight.) Noah doesn't need a TV diva capitalizing on his town's tragedy or filling his daughter's head with glitz and glam.

Cat is ready and willing to put Merry back in Christmas mode with a holiday special that will leave everyone believing in miracles and get her friends back in the home they love. But there's one big problem standing in her way. And his name is Noah Yates. He's wrong about her and she can't wait to prove it. Ring those jingle bells because it's on.]]>
390 Lucy Score Kim 0 to-read 3.79 2017 The Christmas Fix (Fixer: King Siblings #2)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Pretend You're Mine (Benevolence, #1)]]> 218653468 I only wanted to protect you�

Luke Garrison is a hometown hero, a member of the National Guard ready to deploy again. He’s strong, sexy, broody. The last thing he’s looking for is a woman to ruin his solitude. When the wildly beautiful Harper stumbles into his life, though, he realizes that she’s the perfect decoy. A fake girlfriend to keep his family off his back until he’s deployed.

So what if kissing her sends his mind to wicked places? He can control himself. Can’t he?

Harper was on her way to starting a new life� again. But something about Luke makes her want to settle down in this small town and make his house a home. When she’s in his arms, she finally knows what it’s like to feel safe. Protected.

One night of sharing a bed turns into something much, much moreâ€� and soon Luke ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t keep his mind off Harper’s wide gray eyes or his hands off her luscious curves. He never thought he’d feel this way about a woman again. But he knows that he ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t tell her the truth about his dark past. And she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t reveal what she’s running from.

At least this isn’t a real relationship. It’s only for a month. It’s only pretend. Until it isn’t�]]>
451 Lucy Score 1945631309 Kim 0 to-read 4.23 2015 Pretend You're Mine (Benevolence, #1)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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By a Thread 48677178 Dominic was staring at me like he couldn’t decide whether to chop me into pieces or pull my hair and French kiss me.

Dominic
I got her fired. Okay, so I’d had a bad day and took it out on a bystander in a pizza shop. But there’s nothing innocent about Ally Morales. She proves that her first day of her new job� in my office� after being hired by my mother.

So maybe her colorful, annoying, inexplicably alluring personality brightens up the magazine’s offices that have felt like a prison for the past year. Maybe I like that she argues with me in front of the editorial staff. And maybe my after-hours fantasies are haunted by those brown eyes and that sharp tongue.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be the next Russo man to take advantage of his position. I might be a second-generation asshole, but I am not my father.

She’s working herself to death at half a dozen dead-end jobs for some secret reason she doesn’t feel like sharing with me. And I’m going to fix it all. Don’t accuse me of caring. She’s nothing more than a puzzle to be solved. If I can get her to quit, I can finally peel away all those layers. Then I can go back to salvaging the family name and forget all about the dancing, beer-slinging brunette.

Ally
Ha. Hold my beer, Grumpy Grump Face.

Author’s Note: A steamy, swoony workplace romantic comedy with a grumpy boss hero determined to save the day and a plucky heroine who is starting to wonder if there might actually be a beating heart just beneath her boss’s sexy vests.]]>
584 Lucy Score Kim 0 to-read 4.08 2020 By a Thread
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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Twisted Lies (Twisted, #4) 62058385
Charming, deadly, and smart enough to hide it, Christian Harper is a monster dressed in the perfectly tailored suits of a gentleman.

He has little use for morals and even less use for love, but he can't deny the strange pull he feels toward the woman living just one floor below him.

She's the object of his darkest desires, the only puzzle he can't solve. And when the opportunity to get closer to her arises, he breaks his own rules to offer her a deal she can't refuse.

Every monster has their weakness. She's his.

His obsession.

His addiction.

His only exception.

***

Sweet, shy, and introverted despite her social media fame, Stella Alonso is a romantic who keeps her heart in a cage.

Between her two jobs, she has little time or desire for a relationship.

But when a threat from her past drives her into the arms―and house―of the most dangerous man she's ever met, she's tempted to let herself feel something for the first time in a long time.

Because despite Christian's cold nature, he makes her feel everything when she's with him.

Passionate.

Protected.

Truly wanted.

Theirs is a love twisted with secrets and tainted by lies…and when the truths are finally revealed, they could shatter everything.]]>
560 Ana Huang 1728274893 Kim 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Twisted Lies (Twisted, #4)
author: Ana Huang
name: Kim
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)]]> 63121123 For fans of Uprooted and For the Wolf comes a dark, lushly gothic fantasy about a maiden who must unleash the monster within to save her kingdom--but the monster in her head isn't the only threat lurking.



Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.

Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom she calls home--she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets. But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King's own nephew, Captain of the Destriers...and guilty of high treason.

He and Elspeth have until Solstice to gather twelve Providence Cards--the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him]]>
394 Rachel Gillig 035652017X Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2022 One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)
author: Rachel Gillig
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]>
368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Kim 4
Took me 1/3 the way to finally commit to reading the whole story and it was worth it.]]>
4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Kim
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves:
review:
Original, quirky, warm with characters to love (except for one whom I found quite tired and immature).

Took me 1/3 the way to finally commit to reading the whole story and it was worth it.
]]>
None of This Is True 62334530
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]>
390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Kim 5 4.08 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Kim
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves:
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Read it in 24hrs. I think that says it all.
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 49980599 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.]]> 528 Betty Smith Kim 0 to-read 4.49 1943 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
author: Betty Smith
name: Kim
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
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Love and Other Words 36206591 The story of the heart can never be unwritten.

Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.

But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother...only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.

Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.

Love, loss, friendship, and the betrayals of the past all collide in this first fiction novel from New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Autoboyography, Dating You / Hating You).]]>
432 Christina Lauren 1501190539 Kim 5
It's light and charming read ... that took me away from the real world for a little while.

:)]]>
4.23 2018 Love and Other Words
author: Christina Lauren
name: Kim
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
review:
After having read 2 intense books back to back (Historical fiction) , Love and Other words is a well written story of coming of age,.falling in love, loss and rekindling love anew.

It's light and charming read ... that took me away from the real world for a little while.

:)
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<![CDATA[The Princes of Ireland (The Dublin Saga, #1)]]> 240213
Edward Rutherfurd has introduced millions of readers to the human dramas that are the lifeblood of history. From his first bestseller, Sarum , to the #1 bestseller London , he has captivated audiences with gripping narratives that follow the fortunes of several fictional families down through the ages. The Princes of Ireland , a sweeping panorama steeped in the tragedy and glory that is Ireland, epitomizes the power and richness of Rutherfurd’s storytelling magic.

The saga begins in pre-Christian Ireland with a clever refashioning of the legend of Cuchulainn, and culminates in the dramatic founding of the Free Irish State in 1922. Through the interlocking stories of a wonderfully imagined cast of characters -- monks and noblemen, soldiers and rebels, craftswomen and writers -- Rutherfurd vividly conveys the personal passions and shared dreams that shaped the character of the country. He takes readers inside all the major events in Irish the reign of the fierce and mighty kings of Tara; the mission of Saint Patrick; the Viking invasion and the founding of Dublin; the trickery of Henry II, which gave England its foothold on the island in 1167; the plantations of the Tudors and the savagery of Cromwell; the flight of the “Wild Geese�; the failed rebellion of 1798; the Great Famine and the Easter Rebellion. With Rutherfurd’s well-crafted storytelling, readers witness the rise of the Fenians in the late nineteenth century, the splendours of the Irish cultural renaissance, and the bloody battles for Irish independence, as though experiencing their momentous impact firsthand.

Tens of millions of North Americans claim Irish descent. Generations of people have been enchanted by Irish literature, and visitors flock to Dublin and its environs year after year. The Princes of Ireland will appeal to all of them -- and to anyone who relishes epic entertainment spun by a master.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
800 Edward Rutherfurd 0770429076 Kim 0 to-read 3.69 2004 The Princes of Ireland (The Dublin Saga, #1)
author: Edward Rutherfurd
name: Kim
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Unhoneymooners (Unhoneymooners, #1)]]> 42201431
Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.

Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of... lucky.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501128035.]]>
432 Christina Lauren 1501128035 Kim 0 to-read 3.88 2019 The Unhoneymooners (Unhoneymooners, #1)
author: Christina Lauren
name: Kim
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild]]> 61885015
When Brad Orsted’s fifteen-month-old daughter, Marley, died mysteriously at the home of Brad’s mother, he descended into madness. Blaming himself, he plunged into an abyss of grief, guilt, and self-recrimination, fueled by prescription drugs and alcohol. He planned his suicide as his wife, Stacey, searched for a new beginning. She finally found a job in Yellowstone National Park and, with their daughters, Mazzy and Chloe, the pair fled Michigan, looking for refuge and redemption in the 2.2 million acres of glorious American wilderness.

Through the Wilderness begins in Yellowstone, five months after the family’s arrival in 2012, when, in an alcoholic haze, Brad stumbled into a field of sage and survived a face-to-face encounter with an adult male grizzly bear. For the first time in almost two years, he realized he wanted to live―he just didn’t know how.

Desperate for help, Brad invited himself to a Crow sweat lodge ceremony, where an elder told him it was time to stop grieving. The elder’s words started Brad on a journey towards sobriety and inner peace, only possible because of lessons he learned in the wild, his new job as a wildlife photographer and filmmaker, and two orphan grizzly cubs who carried him back home and taught him how to live again.

Brad's ten-year odyssey is about finding the wild inside the human heart. It is a journey of the spirit� a journey to forgiveness and sobriety, to love and life, to memory, and ultimately, to Marley.]]>
256 Brad Orsted 1250284694 Kim 3 4.19 Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild
author: Brad Orsted
name: Kim
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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Broken Country 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]>
320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Kim 3 4.41 2025 Broken Country
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Kim
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
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Time of the Child 201608156
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love � and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness, Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time.]]>
304 Niall Williams 1639734201 Kim 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Time of the Child
author: Niall Williams
name: Kim
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)]]> 76715522 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Aelin Galathynius has vowed to save her people � but at a tremendous cost. Locked within an iron coffin by the Queen of the Fae, Aelin must draw upon her fiery will as she endures months of torture. The knowledge that yielding to Maeve will doom those she loves keeps her from breaking, but her resolve is unraveling with each passing day�

With Aelin captured, friends and allies are scattered to different fates. Some bonds will grow even deeper, while others will be severed forever. As destinies weave together at last, all must fight if Erilea is to have any hope of salvation.

Years in the making, Sarah J. Maas's New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series draws to an explosive conclusion as Aelin fights to save herself―and the promise of a better world.]]>
984 Sarah J. Maas 1639731067 Kim 0 to-read 4.74 2018 Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kim
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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One of Us Knows 62292424 From the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author of When No One Is Watching comes a riveting thriller about the new caretaker of a historic estate who finds herself trapped on an island with a murderer--and the ghosts of her past.

Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can't refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she's determined not to ruin their opportunity.

Then a surprise visit from the home's conservation trust just as a Nor'easter bears down on the island disrupts her newfound life, leaving Ken trapped with a group of possibly dangerous strangers--including the man who brought her life tumbling down years earlier. When he turns up dead, Ken is the prime suspect.

Caught in a web of secrets and in a race against time, Ken and her alters must band together to prove their innocence and discover the truth of Kavanaugh Island--and their own past--or they risk losing not only their future, but their life.]]>
352 Alyssa Cole 0063297132 Kim 0 to-read 3.17 2024 One of Us Knows
author: Alyssa Cole
name: Kim
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
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The Unmaking of June Farrow 66087062 A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.]]>
320 Adrienne Young 0593598679 Kim 0 to-read 4.13 2023 The Unmaking of June Farrow
author: Adrienne Young
name: Kim
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
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Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]>
303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Kim 0 to-read 4.27 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Kim
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
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Flowers for Algernon 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Ěý
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]>
311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Kim 0 4.19 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Kim
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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One Good Thing 214268979 From the New York Times�bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, an unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy

1940, Emilia Romagna. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the University of Ferrara; when Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. There is a war being fought across borders, and in Italy, Mussolini’s Racial Laws have deemed Lili and Esti descendants of an â€inferiorâ€� Jewish race, but life somehow goes on—until Germany invades northern Italy, and the friends find themselves in occupied territory

Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to flee first to a villa in the countryside to help hide a group of young war orphans, then to a convent in Florence, where they pose as nuns and forge false identification papers for the Underground. When disaster strikes at the convent, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t.

Terrified to travel on her own, Lili sets out on an epic journey south toward Allied territory, through Nazi-occupied villages and bombed-out cities, doing everything she can to keep Theo safe.

A remarkable tale of friendship, motherhood, and survival,One Good Thing is a tender reminder that love for another person, even amidst darkness and uncertainty, can be reason to keep going.]]>
432 Georgia Hunter 1984880934 Kim 0 to-read 4.28 2025 One Good Thing
author: Georgia Hunter
name: Kim
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
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Isola 212806636 A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.]]>
368 Allegra Goodman 0593730089 Kim 5 4.00 2025 Isola
author: Allegra Goodman
name: Kim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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<![CDATA[House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1)]]> 44778083
Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose-to assassinate his boss's enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he's offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City's underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion-one that could set them both free, if they'd only let it.

With unforgettable characters, sizzling romance, and page-turning suspense, this richly inventive new fantasy series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas delves into the heartache of loss, the price of freedom-and the power of love.]]>
803 Sarah J. Maas 1635574048 Kim 0 to-read 4.43 2020 House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kim
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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A Sea of Unspoken Things 207677131 A woman investigates her brother's mysterious death while coming to terms with her own haunting past in this atmospheric novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unmaking of June Farrow

The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’sĚýdeep connection with her twin brother,ĚýJohnny,Ěýhas gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels.ĚýSo, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life.Ěý

When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settleĚýher brother’sĚýaffairs,Ěýshe’sĚýforced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man she’s ever loved.Ěý

But James soon discovers that the strange connection she had with Johnny isn’t quite gone, and the more she immerses herself into his world, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was keeping secrets, and he’s not the only one. What she uncovers will push her to unravel what happened in the days before Johnny’s death, but in the end, she’ll have to decide which truths should come to light, and which should stay buried forever.]]>
288 Adrienne Young 0593598709 Kim 0 to-read 3.70 2025 A Sea of Unspoken Things
author: Adrienne Young
name: Kim
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
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What Happened to the McCrays? 195391623 From New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey

When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends—not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone.

The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.]]>
352 Tracey Lange 1250328438 Kim 0 to-read 4.08 2025 What Happened to the McCrays?
author: Tracey Lange
name: Kim
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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The Stolen Queen 211025454 From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.� Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.]]>
352 Fiona Davis 0593474279 Kim 0 to-read 3.91 2025 The Stolen Queen
author: Fiona Davis
name: Kim
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
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Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]>
527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Kim 0 to-read 4.17 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Kim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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The Frozen River 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]>
432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Kim 5 A book to remember.]]> 4.37 2023 The Frozen River
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kim
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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review:
Just read it!!
A book to remember.
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The Birth House 171102 The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of the Rare family. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing and a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies. During the turbulent years of World War I, Dora becomes the midwife's apprentice. Together, they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives.

When Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor, comes to Scots Bay with promises of fast, painless childbirth, some of the women begin to question Miss Babineau's methods - and after Miss Babineau's death, Dora is left to carry on alone. In the face of fierce opposition, she must summon all of her strength to protect the birthing traditions and wisdom that have been passed down to her.

Filled with details that are as compelling as they are surprising-childbirth in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, the prescribing of vibratory treatments to cure hysteria and a mysterious elixir called Beaver Brew- The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to maintain control over their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.]]>
408 Ami McKay 0676977731 Kim 0 to-read 4.00 2006 The Birth House
author: Ami McKay
name: Kim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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Alias Grace 609524 Man Booker Prize Nominee (1996)

"Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor." Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim?

Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery.]]>
545 Margaret Atwood 1860492592 Kim 0 to-read 4.09 1996 Alias Grace
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Kim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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Code Name Hélène 50089336 Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding and moving story of enduring love, remarkable sacrifice and unfaltering resolve that chronicles the true exploits of a woman who deserves to be a household name.

It is 1936 and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name.

As LUCIENNE CARLIER Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border. Her success and her remarkable ability to evade capture earns her the nickname THE WHITE MOUSE from the Gestapo. With a five million franc bounty on her head, Nancy is forced to escape France and leave Henri behind. When she enters training with the Special Operations Executives in Britain, her new comrades are instructed to call her ±áÉł˘Ă±··ˇ. And finally, with mission in hand, Nancy is airdropped back into France as the deadly MADAM ANDRÉ, where she claims her place as one of the most powerful leaders in the French Resistance, armed with a ferocious wit, her signature red lipstick, and the ability to summon weapons straight from the Allied Forces.

But no one can protect Nancy if the enemy finds out these four women are one and the same, and the closer to liberation France gets, the more exposed she--and the people she loves--become.]]>
451 Ariel Lawhon 0385544685 Kim 0 to-read 4.39 2020 Code Name Hélène
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kim
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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When We Had Wings 60693378 From three bestselling authors comes an interwoven tale about a trio of World War II nurses stationed in the South Pacific who wage their own battle for freedom and survival.

The Philippines, 1941. When U.S. Navy nurse Eleanor Lindstrom, U.S. Army nurse Penny Franklin, and Filipina nurse Lita Capel forge a friendship at the Army Navy Club in Manila, they believe they’re living a paradise assignment. All three are seeking a way to escape their pasts, but soon the beauty and promise of their surroundings give way to the heavy mantle of war.

Caught in the crosshairs of a fight between the U.S. military and the Imperial Japanese Army for control of the Philippine Islands, the nurses are forced to serve under combat conditions and, ultimately, endure captivity as the first female prisoners of the Second World War. As their resiliency is tested in the face of squalid living arrangements, food shortages, and the enemy’s blatant disregard for the articles of the Geneva Convention, the women strive to keep their hope—and fellow inmates—alive, though not without great cost.

In this sweeping story based on the true experiences of nurses dubbed the “Angels of Bataan,� three women shift in and out of each other’s lives through the darkest days of the war, buoyed by their unwavering friendship and distant dreams of liberation.]]>
424 Ariel Lawhon 0785253343 Kim 0 to-read 4.10 2022 When We Had Wings
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kim
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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I Was Anastasia 33989585
Countless others have rendered their verdict. Now it is your turn.

Russia, July 17, 1918: Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia, where they face a merciless firing squad. None survive. At least that is what the executioners have always claimed.

Germany, February 17, 1920: A young woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Anastasia Romanov is pulled shivering and senseless from a canal. Refusing to explain her presence in the freezing water or even acknowledge her rescuers, she is taken to the hospital where an examination reveals that her body is riddled with countless horrific scars. When she finally does speak, this frightened, mysterious young woman claims to be the Russian grand duchess.
As rumors begin to circulate through European society that the youngest Romanov daughter has survived the massacre at Ekaterinburg, old enemies and new threats are awakened. The question of who Anna Anderson is and what actually happened to Anastasia Romanov spans fifty years and touches three continents. This thrilling saga is every bit as moving and momentous as it is harrowing and twisted.]]>
Ariel Lawhon 052549622X Kim 0 to-read 3.68 2018 I Was Anastasia
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kim
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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<![CDATA[Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)]]> 76714487 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Chaol Westfall and Nesryn Faliq have arrived in the shining city of Antica to forge an alliance with the Khagan of the Southern Continent, whose vast armies are Erilea's last hope. But they have also come to Antica for another purpose: to seek healing at the famed Torre Cesme for the wounds Chaol received in Rifthold.

After enduring unspeakable horrors as a child, Yrene Towers has no desire to help the young lord from Adarlan, let alone heal him. Yet she has sworn an oath to assist those in need—and will honor it. But Lord Westfall carries shadows from his own past, and Yrene soon comes to realize they could engulf them both.

In this sweeping parallel novel to the New York Times bestselling Empire of Storms, Chaol, Nesryn, and Yrene will have to draw on every scrap of their resilience if they wish to save their friends. But while they become entangled in the political webs of the khaganate, deep in the shadows of mighty mountains where warriors soar on legendary ruks, long-awaited answers slumber. Answers that might offer their world a chance at survival—or doom them all . . .]]>
663 Sarah J. Maas 1639731040 Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2017 Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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<![CDATA[Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)]]> 76707900 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past�

She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.

The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series continues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.]]>
648 Sarah J. Maas 1639731008 Kim 0 to-read 4.64 2015 Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kim
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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<![CDATA[That Holiday Feeling (Virgin River, #7.5; Those Manning Men, #5)]]> 6422471 Silver Bells by Debbie Macomber

In this classic story, Debbie brings those Manning men and Manning sisters home for a mistletoe marriage when a single dad finally says "I do."

this story was also published in the anthology Christmas Kisses

The Perfect Holiday by Sherryl Woods

Will bachelor Trace Franklin become a groom-to-be by Christmastime? He sure will ... if Savannah Holiday's aunt Mae as anything to do with it.

Under the Christmas Tree by Robyn Carr

When the folks of Virgin River discover a box of adorable puppies under the town's Christmas tree they call on local vet Nathaniel Jensen for help. But it's his budding romance with Annie McCarty that really has tongues --- and tails --- wagging!]]>
330 Debbie Macomber 0778328376 Kim 0 to-read 4.17 2009 That Holiday Feeling (Virgin River, #7.5; Those Manning Men, #5)
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Kim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
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The Gift 63945326 It’s Christmas Eve and Stella Hansen is broke.

She is so broke that despite working two jobs, she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t even afford a present for her husband on their first Christmas as man and wife. But then a mysterious storekeeper at a pawn shop offers Stella an intriguing trade.

Stella wants more than anything to buy her husband the Christmas gift of his dreams. But will it come at a terrible price?


The Gift is a gripping Christmas-themed thriller inspired by the classic O. Henry tale, The Gift of the Magi.]]>
47 Freida McFadden Kim 2 3.24 2022 The Gift
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kim
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
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For the Record 217387723 An electrifying rom com of rivalry and redemption, perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Daisy Jones and the Six, from New York Times bestselling author Emma Lord.

Once the most notorious rivals in the music scene, pop princess Mackenzie Waters and punk rockstar Sam Blaze electrified audiences as their bands clashed on stage. But behind the scenes, their simmering tension grew into something more � until suddenly both bands fell apart, and the idea of Mackenzie and Sam did, too.

Two years later, Sam has traded the rockstar lifestyle for a quiet life raising the son he didn’t know about. Meanwhile, Mackenzie is dealing with a postoperative change in her voice by only singing under a pseudonym. The only way to revive their public careers? A joint comeback album.

With fans over the moon and their futures on the line, Sam and Mackenzie face their biggest challenge yet: giving up the old rivalry and learning to work together. But as old sparks fly and new secrets emerge, they set off a chain reaction neither of them could have anticipated � one that proves that sometimes, the greatest hits are the ones yet to be written.]]>
336 Emma Lord 1250845327 Kim 0 to-read 3.94 2025 For the Record
author: Emma Lord
name: Kim
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
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Strangers in Time 217182446 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes David Baldacci’s newest novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved book shop owner and two teenagers scarred by the second world war, and the healing and hope they find in one another.

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.

Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via “Operation Pied Piper,� Molly has been away from her parents—from her home—for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: both her parents are gone.

Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where A book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other—over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen—they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.

But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is still reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive—something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down.

As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.]]>
448 David Baldacci 1538742055 Kim 0 to-read 4.09 2025 Strangers in Time
author: David Baldacci
name: Kim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: to-read
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Do Not Disturb 58778536
To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.

But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.

Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She'll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom.

But first, she must survive the night.

Do Not Disturb is a Hitchcock-style psychological thriller that will keep you tearing through the pages until you reach the shocking conclusion!]]>
325 Freida McFadden Kim 3 3.93 2021 Do Not Disturb
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kim
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
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The Summer Swap 200830601 "The perfect summer novel—sharp, smart and so much fun!" —Viola Shipman, USA TODAY bestselling author, on The Island Villa

Cecilia Lapthorne always vowed she’d never go back to Dune Cottage. So no one is more surprised than Cecilia to find herself escaping her own seventieth birthday party to return to the remote but beautiful cottage on Cape Cod—a place filled with memories. Some are good—especially memories of the early days with her husband, volatile artist Cameron, before his fame eclipsed their marriage. But then there are the memories she has revealed to no one. Especially not her daughter, Kristen, who hero-worshipped her father.

For aspiring artist Lily, Dune Cottage has been a refuge, albeit an illicit one. After dropping out of medical school, she’s cleaning houses on the Cape to get by, guilt-ridden for disappointing her parents. Unoccupied for years, the cottage seemed the perfect place to hide away and lick her wounds—until Cecilia unexpectedly arrives. Despite an awkward beginning, Lily accepts Cecilia’s invitation to stay on as her guest, and a flicker of kinship ignites.

Then Cecilia’s grandson, Todd—and Lily’s unrequited crush—shows up, sending a shock wave through their unlikely friendship. Will it inspire Lily to find the courage to live the life she wants? Can Cecilia finally let go of the past to find a new future? Because as surely as the tide erases past footprints, this summer is offering both Cecilia and Lily the chance to swap old dreams for new…]]>
336 Sarah Morgan 1335009310 Kim 3
The only criticism I have for this book, is the editing. Some dialogue is redundant and repetitive making me want to "get on with it" and skip through.]]>
3.83 The Summer Swap
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
Enjoyable story.

The only criticism I have for this book, is the editing. Some dialogue is redundant and repetitive making me want to "get on with it" and skip through.
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A Wedding in December 43162894 A Wedding in December

In the snowy perfection of Aspen, the White family gathers for youngest daughter Rosie’s whirlwind Christmas wedding. First to arrive are the bride’s parents, Maggie and Nick. Their daughter’s marriage is a milestone they are determined to celebrate wholeheartedly, but they are hiding a huge secret of their own: they are on the brink of divorce. After living apart for the last six months, the last thing they need is to be trapped together in an irresistibly romantic winter wonderland.

Rosie’s older sister, Katie, is also dreading the wedding. Worried that impulsive, sweet-hearted Rosie is making a mistake, Katie is determined to save her sister from herself! If only the irritatingly good-looking best man, Jordan, would stop interfering with her plans�

Bride-to-be Rosie loves her fiancé but is having serious second thoughts. Except everyone has arrived—how can she tell them she’s not sure? As the big day gets closer, and emotions run even higher, this is one White family Christmas none of them will ever forget!]]>
426 Sarah Morgan 1488054290 Kim 0 to-read 3.93 2019 A Wedding in December
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Sleepless in Manhattan (From Manhattan with Love, #1)]]> 27190170 USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan introduces a sizzling new trilogy about three best friends embracing life—and love—in ManhattanĚý

Cool, calm and competent, events planner Paige Walker loves a challenge. After a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, she's now determined to prove herself—and where better to take the world by storm than in the exhilarating bustle of Manhattan? But when Paige is let go from the job she loves, she must face her biggest challenge of all—going it alone.Ěý

Except launching her own events company is nothing compared to hiding her outrageous crush on Jake Romano—her brother's best friend, New York's most in-demand date, and the only man to break her heart. When Jake offers Paige's fledgling company a big chance, their still-sizzling chemistry starts giving her sleepless nights. But can she convince the man who trusts no one to take a chance on forever?]]>
464 Sarah Morgan 0373789157 Kim 0 to-read 3.74 2016 Sleepless in Manhattan (From Manhattan with Love, #1)
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
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The Book of Lost Friends 53025903 A new novel inspired by historical events: a story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who rediscovers their story and its connection to her own students' lives.

Lisa Wingate brings to life stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off.

Louisiana, 1875 In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.

Louisiana, 1987 For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.]]>
388 Lisa Wingate 1984819887 Kim 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Book of Lost Friends
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Kim
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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The Diamond Eye 58490567 The New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code returns with an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history's deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story.

In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kyiv, wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.

Still reeling from war wounds and devastated by loss, Mila finds herself isolated and lonely in the glittering world of Washington, DC--until an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and an even more unexpected connection with a silent fellow sniper offer the possibility of happiness. But when an old enemy from Mila's past joins forces with a deadly new foe lurking in the shadows, Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.

Based on a true story, The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever.]]>
435 Kate Quinn 0062943510 Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2022 The Diamond Eye
author: Kate Quinn
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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<![CDATA[The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #1)]]> 40914165 An alternate cover edition for ISBN 978-1492671527 can be found here.

In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry.

The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.]]>
309 Kim Michele Richardson Kim 0 to-read 4.17 2019 The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #1)
author: Kim Michele Richardson
name: Kim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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The Personal Librarian 55333938 This is a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780593101537.

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.]]>
341 Marie Benedict Kim 0 to-read 3.98 2021 The Personal Librarian
author: Marie Benedict
name: Kim
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches]]> 60018635 A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family--and a new love--changes the course of her life.

As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don't mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she's used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos pretending to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.

But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and...Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he's concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.

As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn't know she was looking for....
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318 Sangu Mandanna 059343935X Kim 0 to-read 4.04 2022 The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
author: Sangu Mandanna
name: Kim
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
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Fairy Tale 60177373 Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.� And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.]]>
607 Stephen King 1668002175 Kim 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Fairy Tale
author: Stephen King
name: Kim
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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One Big Happy Family 204906189 Please don’t come home for Christmas�

Julie Parker’s kids are her greatest gift. Still, she’s not exactly heartbroken when they ask to skip a big Christmas. Her son, Nick, is taking a belated honeymoon with his bride, Blair, while her daughter, Dana, will purge every reminder of the guy who dumped her. Again. Julie feels practically giddy for one-on-one holiday time with Heath, the (much) younger man she’s secretly dating.

But her plans go from cozy to chaotic when Nick and Dana plead for Christmas at the family cabin in memory of their late father, Julie’s ex. She ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t refuse, even though she dreads their reactions to her new man when they realize she’s been hiding him for months.

As the guest list grows in surprising ways, from Blair’s estranged mom to Heath’s precocious children, Julie’s secret is one of many to be unwrapped. Over this delightfully complicated and very funny Christmas, she’ll discover that more really is merrier, and that a big, happy family can become bigger and happier, if they let go of old hurts and open their hearts to love.]]>
320 Susan Mallery 1335006303 Kim 3 Some repetitive dialogue and drama, yet I was still able to enjoy the story to the end.]]> 3.64 2024 One Big Happy Family
author: Susan Mallery
name: Kim
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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3.5 A soft, snuggly, cosy book for the season.
Some repetitive dialogue and drama, yet I was still able to enjoy the story to the end.
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<![CDATA[Home Sweet Christmas (Wishing Tree, #2)]]> 59901158 With twinkling humor and heartfelt Christmas spirit, two friends find love in a town called Wishing Tree�

Until Camryn Neff can return to her “realâ€� life in Chicago, she’s in Wishing Tree to care for her twin sisters. She’s not looking for forever love, not here. But handsome hotelier Jake Crane is a temptation she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t resist, so she suggests they pair up for the season. No golden rings, no broken hearts. At his side, she sees her hometown through Christmas-colored eyes. The cheer is cheerier, the joy more joyful. She thought she had put her future on hold…but maybe her real life was here all along, waiting for her to come home.

New in town, River Best is charmed by Wishing Tree’s homespun traditions and warmhearted people. When she’s crowned Snow Queen, she’s honored but wary. Dylan Tucker, her king, seems like the stuff of sugarplum dreams, but she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something big. As they perform their “royalâ€� duties—tasting cookies, lighting trees—Dylan’s good humor and melty kisses draw her to the brink of love. But she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t let herself fall until she uncovers his secret, even if her lack of faith means losing him forever.

SM Brand-New Story

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400 Susan Mallery 1335449981 Kim 0 to-read 3.73 2022 Home Sweet Christmas (Wishing Tree, #2)
author: Susan Mallery
name: Kim
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
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The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas� epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]>
1276 Alexandre Dumas 0140449264 Kim 0 to-read 4.29 1846 The Count of Monte Cristo
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Kim
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1846
rating: 0
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One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Kim 0 to-read 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Kim
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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Wuthering Heights 6185 You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.

New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.

Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.]]>
464 Emily Brontë Kim 0 to-read 3.89 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Kim
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of�

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]>
329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Kim 5 4.31 2022 The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kim
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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The Ex 43531101
Joel is sweet, handsome, romantic, and best of all, he’s crazy about Cassie. She thinks she’s found the guy she’ll spend the rest of her life with. Have children with. Grow old with.

Yes, she knows about his perfect ex-girlfriend, Francesca. The beautiful, brilliant chef, beloved by all his friends. But she thinks Francesca is out of the picture. She thinks Francesca is gone for good.

Think again, Cassie.]]>
347 Freida McFadden Kim 3 3.91 2019 The Ex
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kim
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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The Boyfriend 208503280 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]>
368 Freida McFadden 1728296226 Kim 3 3.95 2024 The Boyfriend
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kim
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/03
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Mad Honey 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]>
464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Kim 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Kim
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Jane Eyre 35427438
But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

AmazonClassics brings you timeless works from the masters of storytelling. Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or rediscover an old favorite, these new editions open the door to literature’s most unforgettable characters and beloved worlds.

Revised edition: Previously published as Jane Eyre, this edition of Jane Eyre (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.]]>
306 Charlotte Brontë Kim 0 to-read 4.40 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Kim
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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All the Colors of the Dark 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]>
608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Kim 0 to-read 4.23 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Kim
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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The Book of Doors 156480764
In New York City, bookseller Cassie Andrews is living an unassuming life when she is given a gift by a favourite customer. It's a book - an unusual book, full of strange writing and mysterious drawings. And at the very front there is a handwritten message to Cassie, telling her that this is the Book of Doors, and that any door is every door .

What Cassie is about to discover is that the Book of Doors is a special book that bestows an extraordinary powers on whoever possesses it, and soon she and her best friend Izzy are exploring all that the Book of Doors can do, swept away from their quiet lives by the possibilities of travelling to anywhere they want.

But the Book of Doors is not the only magical book in the world. There are other books that can do wondrous and dreadful things when wielded by dangerous and ruthless individuals - individuals who crave what Cassie now possesses.

Suddenly Cassie and Izzy are confronted by violence and danger, and the only person who can help them is, it seems, Drummond Fox. He is a man fleeing his own demons - a man with his own secret library of magical books that he has hidden away in the shadows for safekeeping. Because there is a nameless evil out there that is hunting them all . . .

Because some doors should never be opened.]]>
408 Gareth Brown 1787637247 Kim 4
Curious and charming. This book is well worth the read.]]>
4.04 2024 The Book of Doors
author: Gareth Brown
name: Kim
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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Took a few times to get into it. Once I did. I was taken away into a world of wonder, pain, magic, and joy.

Curious and charming. This book is well worth the read.
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The Holiday Cottage 204906186 USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan returns with a heartfelt story of friendship, finding yourself, and the surprising ties that bring us together.

To the outside world, Imogen is a marketing dynamo. Her colleagues don’t know that while her high-achieving professional image is real, the happy childhood stories she spins are as fake as her pretend enthusiasm for Christmas. Working 24/7 has always been her solution to surviving the festive season—until burnout leads to a catastrophic blunder.

Suddenly, Imogen is handed a holiday gift she definitely doesn’t want: enforced time off work to recuperate. Then an invitation arrives from her favorite client, Dorothy, to stay at her guest cottage in the Cotswolds. From the thatched roof to the cozy open fireplace, Holly Cottage is a picture-perfect haven� Can it provide the fresh start Imogen so desperately needs?

For Dorothy, helping Imogen offers a longed-for chance to make reparations for her own past. But as her daughter Sara keeps reminding her, it brings risks, too. Yet Dorothy knows that only a leap of courage will allow her family to grow and heal. And perhaps this Christmas, with Dorothy’s help, the new life that Imogen is slowly piecing together could be better than anything either of them could imagine…]]>
352 Sarah Morgan 1335499091 Kim 4 3.93 2024 The Holiday Cottage
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
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<![CDATA[Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory]]> 56614549
An intense conversation, a spat with a partner, or even an obnoxious tweet―these situations aren’t life-or-death, yet we often react as if they are. That’s because our bodies treat most perceived threats the same way. Yet one approach has proven to be incredibly effective in training our nervous system to stop overreacting and start responding to the world with greater safety and Polyvagal Theory.

In Anchored , expert teacher Deb Dana shares a down-to-earth presentation of Polyvagal Theory, then brings the science to life with practical, everyday ways to transform your relationship with your body. Using field-tested techniques, Dana helps you master the skills to become more aware of your nervous system moment to moment―and change the way you respond to the great and small challenges of life.

Here, you’ll

� Polyvagal Theory―get to know the biology and function of your vagus nerve, the highway of the nervous system
� Befriending Your Nervous System―attune to what’s going on in your body by developing your “neuroception�
� Using Your Vagal Brake―discover key techniques to consciously regulate the intensity of your emotions
� Connection and Protection―learn to recognize and influence your internal cues for safety and danger
� Your Social Engagement System―find ways to create nourishing relationships with others and the world around you
� Practices and guidance to gently shape your nervous system for greater resilience, intuition, safety, and wonder

Through guided imagery, meditation, self-inquiry, and more, Anchored offers a practical user’s manual for moving from a place of fear and panic into a grounded space of balance and confidence. “Once we know how our nervous system works, we can work with it,� teaches Deb Dana. “We can learn to access an embodied, biological resource that is always present, available, and there to guide us toward well-being.”]]>
208 Deb Dana 1683647068 Kim 0 to-read 3.94 Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory
author: Deb Dana
name: Kim
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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<![CDATA[Miracle on 5th Avenue (From Manhattan with Love, #3)]]> 28590927 It will take a Christmas miracle for two very different souls to find each other in this perfectly festive fairy tale of New York!

Hopeless romantic Eva Jordan loves everything about Christmas. She might be spending the holidays alone this year, but when she's given an opportunity to house-sit a spectacular penthouse on Fifth Avenue, she leaps at the chance. What better place to celebrate than in snow-kissed Manhattan? What she didn't expect was to find the penthouse still occupied by its gorgeous—and mysterious—owner.

Bestselling crime writer Lucas Blade is having the nightmare before Christmas. With a deadline and the anniversary of his wife's death looming, he's isolated himself in his penthouse with only his grief for company. He wants no interruptions, no decorations and he certainly doesn't appreciate being distracted by his beautiful, bubbly new housekeeper. But when the blizzard of the century leaves Eva snowbound in his apartment, Lucas starts to open up to the magic she brings…This Christmas, is Lucas finally ready to trust that happily-ever-afters do exist?]]>
384 Sarah Morgan 0373789343 Kim 0 to-read 3.90 2016 Miracle on 5th Avenue (From Manhattan with Love, #3)
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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The Christmas Escape 56646714 This Christmas, be whisked away by USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan in this uplifting novel of friendship, the festive season, and risking everything for the biggest gift of all...

It was supposed to be Christy Sullivan’s perfect Christmas getaway—a trip to Lapland with her family and best friend, Alix. But facing a make-or-break marriage crisis, Christy desperately needs time alone with her husband. Her solution? Alix can take Christy’s little daughter to Lapland, and they will reunite there for Christmas Day. It’s a big ask, but what else are friends for?

There’s nothing Alix won’t do for Christy. But Christy’s request to save Christmas is giving Alix sleepless nights. She knows something is wrong, but for the first time ever, Christy isn’t talking. And even the Arctic temperatures in Lapland aren’t enough to dampen the seriously inconvenient sizzle Alix is developing for Zac, a fellow guest and nemesis from her past.

As secrets unravel and unexpected romance shines under the northern lights, can Christy and Alix’s Christmas escape give them the courage to fight for the relationships they really want, and save the precious gift of each other’s friendship?]]>
352 Sarah Morgan 1335529055 Kim 0 to-read 3.82 2021 The Christmas Escape
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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How to End a Love Story 212432167 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Two writers with a complicated history end up working on the same TV show... Can they write themselves a new ending? A sexy and emotional enemies-to-lovers romance guaranteed to pull on your heartstrings and give you a book hangover from brilliant new voice Yulin Kuang.

Helen Zhang hasn’t seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever.

Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She’s even scored a coveted spot in the writers� room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer’s block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except�

Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he’s well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn’t have taken the job on Helen’s show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t pass up.

Grant’s exactly as Helen remembers him—charming, funny, popular, and lovable in ways that she’s never been. And Helen’s exactly as Grant remembers too—brilliant, beautiful, closed off. But working together is messy, and electrifying, and Helen’s parents, who have never forgiven Grant, have no idea he’s in the picture at all.

When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet� the key to making peace with their past—and themselves—might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.]]>
384 Yulin Kuang 0063310686 Kim 0 to-read 3.51 2024 How to End a Love Story
author: Yulin Kuang
name: Kim
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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You Like It Darker 201242757 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,� writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,� and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids� explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,� a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,� a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,� a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man� asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]>
512 Stephen King 1668037718 Kim 0 to-read 4.16 2024 You Like It Darker
author: Stephen King
name: Kim
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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Funny Story 194803835 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]>
400 Emily Henry 0593441281 Kim 0 to-read 4.18 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Kim
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The Briar Club 181110045 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]>
432 Kate Quinn 0063244748 Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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By Any Other Name 203164368 From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring� (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.]]>
525 Jodi Picoult 059349721X Kim 0 to-read 4.09 2024 By Any Other Name
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Kim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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The Booklover's Library 207909446
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job to provide for herself and her beloved daughter, Olivia. But with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots� Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her.

When the threat of war becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In her daughter’s absence, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, as well as the recommendations she provides to the library’s quirky regulars. But the job doesn’t come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing, and her work forces her to confront the memories of her late father and the bookstore they once owned together before a terrible accident.

As the Blitz intensifies in Nottingham and Emma fights to reunite with her daughter, she must learn to depend on her community and the power of literature more than ever to find hope in the darkest of times.]]>
416 Madeline Martin 1335015132 Kim 0 to-read 3.83 2024 The Booklover's Library
author: Madeline Martin
name: Kim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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<![CDATA[Snowflakes at Mistletoe Cottage]]> 52039672
Esme is forced suddenly to move back to her sleepy home town of Sandchester, and despite the snow blanketing the roof and the fairy lights that twinkle in her rustic little cottage, everything is looking bleak. That is until she reconnects with an old crush and finds herself unexpectedly getting swept away.

But Joe, handsome and charming as he is, is not all he seems. Esme soon realises that he has a tragic past which he just might not be able to overcome�

Surrounded by her loving, if hare-brained, family and with the support of her hilarious friends, Esme is determined to have a go at forging her own path, even if it all comes to nothing. But one question still lingers in her mind: will she find someone to kiss under the mistletoe this Christmas?]]>
270 Katie Ginger Kim 3 4.04 2019 Snowflakes at Mistletoe Cottage
author: Katie Ginger
name: Kim
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/12/13
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<![CDATA[Mrs. Dalloway: The Original 1925 Unabridged and Complete Edition (Virginia Woolf Classics)]]> 196847013
The working title of Mrs. Dalloway was The Hours. The novel began with two short stories, "Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister". The book describes Clarissa's preparations for a party she will host in the evening and the ensuing party. With an interior perspective, the story travels forwards and backwards in time, to construct an image of Clarissa's life and the inter-war social structure. The novel addresses the nature of time in personal experience through multiple interwoven stories.

In October 2005, Mrs. Dalloway was included on TIME Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since its first issue in 1923.]]>
156 Virginia Woolf 1916700373 Kim 0 to-read 3.74 1925 Mrs. Dalloway: The Original 1925 Unabridged and Complete Edition (Virginia Woolf Classics)
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Kim
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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<![CDATA[Life on Svalbard: Finding Home on a Remote Island Near the North Pole]]> 205435940 Join Cecilia Blomdahl in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the world’s northernmost town.

Located in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, Svalbard is a unique archipelago that boasts stunning wintry landscapes, endangered Arctic animals, and awe-inspiring natural phenomena. Since 2015, Cecilia has called this beautiful and remote location home. Along with her partner, Christoffer, and her dog, Grim, she has adjusted to life at the top of the world—where polar bears roam free and northern lights shine bright.

With evocative text and spectacular photography, Cecilia shares the joys and challenges of adapting to an inhospitable climate. Her story begins in the darkness of polar night, and the allure of her remote location is revealed gradually as sunlight returns months later. Through personal stories and firsthand advice, Cecilia offers insight for anyone seeking to thrive in unusual living conditions.

Whatever your location, Life on Svalbard will give you a deeper understanding of why people choose to live in extreme environments and perhaps help you find the hidden magic of where you live too.]]>
256 Cecilia Blomdahl 0744095093 Kim 0 to-read 4.46 Life on Svalbard: Finding Home on a Remote Island Near the North Pole
author: Cecilia Blomdahl
name: Kim
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/20
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<![CDATA[No More Secrets (Blue Moon, #1)]]> 218653555 “I ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t wait anymore.â€� His mouth claimed hers in a storm of heat and power.

Carter Pierce is a man who believes in signs. He just doesn't know what to do with this one.

In the small town of Blue Moon Bend, where everybody is a matchmaker, Carter wants to be left alone to tend the family farm. After returning from Afghanistan with scars, his only goal is recovery. He doesn't need any distractions, and definitely not one with silver-blonde hair and lips that beg to be kissed.

Summer Lentz is a journalist from the city sent to interview Carter and his family. She's out of place in the small town, with her designer wardrobe and workaholic lifestyle. She asks too many questions and doesn't take no for an answer, threatening to destroy the peace and balance that Carter has been working towards. She thwarts every attempt Carter makes to retreat back inside himself, somehow bringing him closer to being whole again.

Summer has secrets of her own, but she never planned to open up to anyone - let alone the scowling, secretive farm owner whose story she's after. But as she gets drawn into the community, she starts to realize that she can't stay closed off forever.

And what's more, she doesn't want to.

As Carter and Summer grow closer, will they be able to push past the secrets that are holding both of them back?]]>
328 Lucy Score 1945631376 Kim 0 to-read 3.85 2016 No More Secrets (Blue Moon, #1)
author: Lucy Score
name: Kim
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/26
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<![CDATA[Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)]]> 195820807
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]>
432 Abby Jimenez 1538704439 Kim 0 to-read 4.35 2024 Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kim
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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<![CDATA[Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)]]> 61918816 A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match.

Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin�-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass� scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.

And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,â€� and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t refuse.]]>
416 Abby Jimenez 1538704390 Kim 0 to-read 4.29 2023 Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kim
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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<![CDATA[Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)]]> 58684524
While her ultra-wealthy parents want her to carry on the family legacy of world-renowned surgeons, Alexis doesn’t need glory or fame. She’s fine with being a “mere� ER doctor. And every minute she spends with Daniel and the tight-knit town where he lives, she’s discovering just what’s really important. Yet letting their relationship become anything more than a short-term fling would mean turning her back on her family and giving up the opportunity to help thousands of people.

Bringing Daniel into her world is impossible, and yet she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t just give up the joy she’s found with him either. With so many differences between them, how can Alexis possibly choose between her world and his?

The New York Times bestselling author of Life's Too Short delivers a refreshingly modern fairy tale perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Emily Henry.]]>
389 Abby Jimenez 1538704374 Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2022 Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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Here One Moment 208516656 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.�

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]>
512 Liane Moriarty 0593798600 Kim 0 to-read 3.98 2024 Here One Moment
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Kim
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/16
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<![CDATA[The Ever King (The Ever Seas, #1)]]> 75384035 They stole his crown, so he stole their daughter�

For years Erik, the scarred king of the Ever Kingdom, has thought of nothing but vengeance against the man who killed his father and trapped him beneath the waves, making him a prisoner in his own realm.

Until his enemy’s daughter unintentionally breaks the chains on the Ever, and Erik makes her the unwitting pawn in his vicious game of revenge.

She’s innocent. He’s vicious. But he will take back what he lost, no matter the price.

Unless she steals his heart first.

Welcome to the passionate world of the Ever Kingdom where pirates, sirens, and fae collide with Vikings in a dark fantasy romance between a villain and the innocent princess who holds his heart.

*Please note: This series is set in the same world as the bestselling Broken Kingdoms series, but can be read independently, and readers are encouraged to read the list of triggers inside*]]>
408 L.J. Andrews Kim 0 to-read 4.14 2023 The Ever King (The Ever Seas, #1)
author: L.J. Andrews
name: Kim
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/14
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Every Summer After 58014893
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.]]>
320 Carley Fortune 0593438531 Kim 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Every Summer After
author: Carley Fortune
name: Kim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/14
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Meet Me at the Lake 61797464
At thirty-two, Fern's life doesn't look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern's back home, running her mother's Muskoka lakeside resort—something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend's the manager, and Fern doesn't know where to begin.

She needs a plan—a lifeline. To her surprise, it comes in the form of Will, who arrives nine years too late, with a suitcase in tow and an offer to help on his lips. Will may be the only person who understands what Fern's going through. But how could she possibly trust this expensive-suit wearing mirage who seems nothing like the young man she met all those years ago. Will is hiding something, and Fern's not sure she wants to know what it is.

But ten years ago, Will Baxter rescued Fern. Can she do the same for him?]]>
336 Carley Fortune 0735243786 Kim 4 3.66 2023 Meet Me at the Lake
author: Carley Fortune
name: Kim
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/14
date added: 2024/09/14
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<![CDATA[A Column of Fire (Kingsbridge, #3)]]> 33571713 As Europe erupts, can one young spy protect his queen? Ken Follett takes us deep into the treacherous world of powerful monarchs, intrigue, murder, and treason with his magnificent epic, A Column of Fire—the chronological latest in the Kingsbridge series, following The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and the prequel, The Evening and the Morning.

In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love.

Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country’s first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents.

The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pitches those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else—no matter what the cost.

Exciting and ambitious, and set during one of the most turbulent and revolutionary times in history, A Column of Fire will delight longtime fans of the Kingsbridge series and serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Ken Follett.]]>
916 Ken Follett 052595497X Kim 5 Long yet excellent read. 4.16 2017 A Column of Fire (Kingsbridge, #3)
author: Ken Follett
name: Kim
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/09
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves:
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Long yet excellent read.
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<![CDATA[A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)]]> 51252983 The tantalising start to a seductive fantasy series from global #1 bestselling author Sarah J. Maas.

Feyre is a huntress. And when she sees a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she kills the predator and takes its prey to feed herself and her family.

But the wolf was not what it seemed, and Feyre cannot predict the high price she will have to pay for its death...

Dragged away from her family for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding even more than his piercing green eyes suggest.

As Feyre's feelings for Tamlin turn from hostility to passion, she learns that the faerie lands are a far more dangerous place than she realized. And Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.]]>
440 Sarah J. Maas 1526605392 Kim 5 Yet I am so happy to be here.

On to book II]]>
4.12 2015 A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kim
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/19
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves:
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I'm late jumping on the Sarah J. MAAS wagon.
Yet I am so happy to be here.

On to book II
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<![CDATA[Pathogenesis: How germs made history]]> 61172502 A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'Powerfully argued... Fascinating and pacy' Sunday Times, Book of the Week'Superbly written... sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman' The Times'Full of amazing facts' Observer'The book shines when it brings cutting-edge science to bear' Financial Times'A dizzying range of material' The Economist'A humbling story for humankind' SpectatorChallenges some of the greatest cliches about colonialism... A revelation' SATHNAM SANGHERA'Thrilling and eye-opening' LEWIS DARTNELL'Science and history at its best' MARK HONIGSBAUM'Unpicks everything we thought we knew... Mind blowing' CAL FLYNIn this revelatory book, Dr Jonathan Kennedy argues that germs have shaped humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam.How did an Indonesian volcano help cause the Black Death, setting Europe on the road to capitalism? How could 168 men extract the largest ransom in history from an opposing army of eighty thousand? And why did the Industrial Revolution lead to the birth of the modern welfare state?The latest science reveals that infectious diseases are not just something that happens to us, but a fundamental part of who we are. Indeed, the only reason humans don't lay eggs is that a virus long ago inserted itself into our DNA, and there are as many bacteria in your body as there are human cells. We have been thinking about the survival of the fittest all evolution is not simply about human strength and intelligence, but about how we live and thrive in a world dominated by microbes.By exploring the startling intimacy of our relationship with infectious diseases, Kennedy shows how they have been responsible for some of the seismic revolutions of the past 50,000 years. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story, revealing how the crisis of a pandemic can offer vital opportunities for change.]]> 384 Jonathan Kennedy 1911709054 Kim 0 to-read 4.07 2023 Pathogenesis: How germs made history
author: Jonathan Kennedy
name: Kim
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
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Never 57747930 The new must-read epic from master storyteller Ken Follett: more than a thriller, it's an action-packed, globe-spanning drama set in the present day.


In the Sahara Desert, two elite intelligence agents are on the trail of a powerful group of drug-smuggling terrorists, risking their lives—and, when they fall desperately in love, their careers—at every turn. Nearby, a beautiful young widow fights against human traffickers while traveling illegally to Europe with the help of a mysterious man who may not be who he says he is.

In China, a senior government official with vast ambitions for himself and his country battles against the older Communist hawks in the government, who may be pushing China—and its close military ally, North Korea—to a place of no return.

And in the United States, Pauline Green, the country's first woman president, navigates terrorist attacks, illegal arms trading, and the smear campaigns of her blustering political opponent with careful and deft diplomacy. She will do everything in her power to avoid starting an unnecessary war. But when one act of aggression leads to another, the most powerful countries in the world are caught in a complex web of alliances they can't escape. And once all the sinister pieces are in place, can anyone—even those with the best of intentions and most elite skills—stop the inevitable?

Never is an extraordinary thriller, full of heroines and villains, false prophets and elite warriors, jaded politicians and opportunistic revolutionaries. It brims with cautionary wisdom for our times, and a delivers a visceral, heart-pounding read that transports readers to the brink of the unimaginable.]]>
802 Ken Follett 0593300017 Kim 0 to-read 3.94 2021 Never
author: Ken Follett
name: Kim
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: to-read
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